<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The (Not So Secret) Diary of a Full-Time Minion by CaffeineGinger</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004703">The (Not So Secret) Diary of a Full-Time Minion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeineGinger/pseuds/CaffeineGinger'>CaffeineGinger</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Chatting &amp; Messaging, Fluff and Humor, Gen, It has been ~1825 days and I still have not seen SPECTRE, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Multi, No beta we die like 00s, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, POV Outsider, Post-Skyfall, Pre-James Bond/Q, Q Branch, do not copy to another site, not specifically just generally</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:54:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,371</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004703</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeineGinger/pseuds/CaffeineGinger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The life and times of an (accidental) expat turned minion of the great and glorious Q, including such episodes as:</p><ul>
<li>All squares are rectangles, but not all horses are box trucks<br/>
</li>
<li>Q-Watch and the Council of Minion-dell<br/>
</li>
<li>Her Guilty Pleasures are Shoes… and Knives<br/>
</li>
<li>YoU CAn't hACk a COmpuTEr tHAt's NoT tURnEd oN<br/>
</li>
<li>On Teaching a Toddler to Care for His Toys<br/>
</li>
<li>The Proper Time &amp; Place (a.k.a. The One With the Canary)</li>
</ul>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Q &amp; 00 Agent(s) (James Bond)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. In the Beginning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>SO... I fell back down the 00Q rabbit hole, and then when I all I <i>meant</i> to do was like, add a few more plot bunnies to my doc, somehow this happened.<br/>I don't have an update schedule planned (the second half of 2020 has NOT been kind to my anxiety and/or productivity), so I'm just gonna put that out there, but chapters should be pretty self-contained.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which an expat joins MI-6, someone gets cheeky, and a designation is assigned.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>FYI this chapter is almost entirely OCs.<br/>Q has like, a few lines, and Bond has literally zero. In fact, the only double-oh we meet isn't even a double-oh yet...<br/></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h4 class="test">Episode ONE</h4>
<h3 class="test">In the Beginning, or: How an American Becomes an Expat Becomes Yankee</h3><p>Six months into her new job (Research Lead, Data Visualization for Blommendaal Phipps, if her mother asked, or anyone else back home) Elle snapped to attention when R called ‘Avalanche’. </p><p>Sometime later - having tracked a certain taxi to its destination, followed its occupant via local video surveillance feeds (the kind that SIS <em>always</em> seemed to have access too, even though they probably shouldn’t), observed him retrieve a waiting motorbike from behind a bodega, making note of the compact satchel he acquired between entering the front and escaping the back, and traced the bike and its rider through the streets of Sofia and onto a southbound highway - Elle finally ran out of cameras with which to play big brother. She clicked her tongue in frustration, galled at - and anxious about - the thought that she’d lost her target. For every second that passed without eyes on, the radius he could have gotten to, the radius that she would have to search in order to pick him up again, steadily increased.</p><p>Except… Elle frowned. That wasn’t exactly true, was it. </p><p>At the thought, Elle paused mid-word in the summary she was compiling for R. After all, there was a hard limit to how far <em>any</em> single vehicle could get on a tank of fuel, even if she had no idea what that limit <em>was </em>in this case. Out of curiosity - and with the glimmer of an idea forming in the back of her mind - Elle pulled the highest resolution still of the bike she could. She regarded the KTM emblem on the blue-and-black motorcycle, wondering if she knew any gearheads that might be able to identify the model at a glance. </p><p>Before she got sidetracked, Elle finished typing up her report, tagging on the end an outline for possible continuation of the trace. The stand-down had not been sounded yet, but she knew little about the op and nothing at all about her target’s significance. Perhaps it was enough to know he was out of the city, and there would be a new assignment to prioritize. She sent it off and stood to get a view over the grid of cube walls, gaze landing on R standing tall at the action desk in the center of the room. </p><p>She knew when the woman had read her summary; R looked up and caught her eye briefly, nodding before returning to her screen. The return message that came through only seconds after Elle sat back down read simply: “Good. Continue.”</p><p>Later, she would learn that an agent setting up surveillance got a little too close, and that he inadvertently tipped off a hive of underworld denizens and scattered them like roaches just hours before a team was meant to go in; that R had been scrambling to recover any possible intelligence she could from the botched op. Later, Elle would learn that an analyst in Operations Support saw the stolen credit card her target eventually used to pay for gas (or petrol, as her co-workers called it), put it together with half a dozen other scraps of information, and come up with a secondary location. She would hear that the agent whose blunder prompted the whole mess made a start in redeeming himself by confirming the location to be a back-up venue for the initial meet, and she would think mildly, <em>good for him.</em></p><p>But, that afternoon, when the ‘at ease’ sounded, her mind was already halfway to elsewhere; the barest whisper of an idea was brushing at the back of her mind, a half-composed algorithm tantalizing in its potential. </p><p>Elle forgot to eat lunch that day (although the package of crackers in her desk mysteriously disappeared) - she had a new project proposal to compose.</p>
<hr class="rounded"/><p>        </p><p>When Elle, fresh from defending her Master’s thesis, interviewed with the institution she knew only as Blommendaal Phipps Research Group, she was intrigued over promises of research funding, and, admittedly, somewhat flattered at having been head-hunted. </p><p>Most of her cohort would have balked at the first mention of forfeiting their right to publish, but not Elle. As much as she had enjoyed gathering the data for her thesis project (and analysing said data, and devising experiments with which to obtain <em>more </em>data), actually writing the paper had nearly given her an ulcer. </p><p>She only barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes when the interviewer claimed she would have the opportunity to change the world, to make it a better, safer place. </p><p>Then she walked into the follow-up interview and blinked at the besuited man-in-black waiting for her when he explained that Blommendaal was actually a cover, and would you know, she’d been selected to interview with SIS.</p><p>(Her brain volunteered a vivid impression of the 'record scratch/freeze frame/you're wondering how I got here' meme, but nothing actually helpful.)</p><p>“But. I’m an American?”</p><p>The man looked at her like she was particularly slow. "Yes,” he drawled.</p><p>“Isn’t there - wouldn’t I need some kind of clearance?” </p><p>“Are you not Elizabeth Marquez, holder of a TS clearance with multiple program authorizations from the American DOD between graduation from Carnegie Mellon University and enrollment as a postgraduate student in London?”</p><p>“Uhm.” Her instinct to plead the fifth was only prevented by the somewhat hysterical observation that <em>'England doesn’t </em>have<em> a Fifth.'</em> </p><p>(Not that there was any reason to be thinking in terms of incriminating herself - after all, while her clearance level was never something that went on her resume, it’s not something one has to <em>deny</em>. It was simply that Elle had never before felt ambushed by knowledge of her own employment history.)</p><p>“It’s expired?” she offered, weakly. </p><p>“Oh. So, then, you would be willing to share with SIS everything you know?” he prompted, still entirely expressionless, but with a dry note to his voice that she appreciated. </p><p>“That’s… not exactly how that works,” she returned, just as dry.</p><p>He jerked his head in a firm nod. “Good. Then I don’t foresee there being any problems.”</p><p>The hour that followed was one of the more peculiar in her life - not because the interview was in any way abnormal; on the contrary, she rehashed her answers to many of the same technical and behavioral queries as the first interview - presumably for whoever would be watching the recording she'd signed a waiver for. Only, while in the midst of explaining algorithmic versus compositional efficiency, and periodically throughout the rest of the meeting, she was struck by the intrusive reminder that <em>she’d been head-hunted by the British Secret Service</em>.</p><p>(In short, the dichotomy was disquieting.)</p><p>Elle didn’t actually <em>meet</em> her prospective boss until the third interview - which was three interviews more than she'd intended on taking before heading back home to New Mexico. </p><p>Evidently her recorded answers to the technical questions had been at least sufficient - or else of little interest - because he repeated none of them.</p><p>“Fix this,” the bespectacled, somewhat rumpled man told her, spinning around a laptop to reveal a window of source code that was unquestionably part of a greater work. </p><p>Elle began reading. After a moment, she glanced up. “Do you want the comments to match the code, or the other way around?” she clarified.</p><p>Q - though she didn’t know his title at the time, or his name, or really anything about him at all - blinked at her and then smiled like she’d said something clever. He turned the laptop back around, clicked a few times (to pull up the annotations, she would see shortly) and said, “You can trust anything committed by user id 1137.” Then he got up and walked away.</p><p>Elle hesitated only a moment before leaning forward and dragging the laptop back her way. </p><p>By the time he returned, she'd finished, found where - on the rather unique version of linux - pysol was hidden, and was well on her way to working up a frustration with her game of Klondike. She turned the computer back over willingly, and twiddled her thumbs - the quietest version of fidgeting she knew - as he reviewed her work.</p><p>After a moment, he looked at her again, seeming nonplussed.  She experienced a sudden bout of nerves. “Not how you wanted it to work?” she asked, reluctantly disappointed. </p><p>“No, no - it works fine. There are just… no compiler warnings.”</p><p>Relieved, she smiled slightly and shrugged. “What’s a little technical debt between friends?”</p><p>“Hh. What, indeed.”</p><p>She worried at her bitten lip, then couldn’t resist adding: “Admittedly, I would recommend against trusting 1137’s suggestions if it came to a spelling bee.”</p><p>He barked a startled laugh, quickly bitten off, before unceremoniously welcoming her to the team.</p><p>She didn’t find out until several months later that user ID 1137 was, in fact, Q himself. </p>
<hr class="rounded"/><p>        </p><p>Nine months into her job at 85 Albert Embankment - Level 3 Specialist Technician, MI-6 Quartermaster Division for those who had the clearance - Elle was notified by email that she'd been authorized to join the on-call support staff rotation, assigned a designation and shuffled into the queue, and instructed where to pick up her new equipment.</p><p>(She had a vivid flashback to her old job, where being 'on call' had meant picking up the ancient, one-way pager, a massive brick straight out of the '80s. The receive-only device was one of two forms of communication allowed in some of the labs where she had worked, the alternative being that heavy, off-white, curly-corded type of desk phone hardwired into a landline.)</p><p>Of course, the new headset she got from R - not Bluetooth, exactly, but its TSS-developed, Q-approved cousin - lacked the grunge, nostalgia factor, but more than made up for it in coolness. The, in a farcical twist, she had to go up to Ops Support to sign for the equipment. The one hour, flash-based web training course that followed made her shake her head to dispel another pang of deja vu, and boiled down to basically three things. </p><p>1- Don't say anything you shouldn't; 2- If you don't know, don't be afraid to pass it up the chain; and 3- Don't panic.</p><p>(It was ludicrous to expect either common sense or a stalwart nature could be taught in <em>any</em> amount of time, and evidently Elle wasn't the only one who thought so.)</p><p>Elle had been surrounded by the murmur - and occasional louder interjection - of her fellows fielding support calls around the bullpen since she started. It wasn't a conscious decision to start paying attention to those half-heard conversations, but they certainly seemed to grab her attention more often.</p><p>"No, agent, do <em>not</em> shoot the computer, i- Oh, ta, you shot the computer. Why bother calling us then?"</p><p>"I don't- what do you want me to do, <em>hack</em> the 2002 Hyundai with the manual-crank windows?"</p><p><em>"...close air support</em>, Christ. I think you've rung the wrong department. Hang on - I'm getting Ops back on the line."</p><p>Of course, once she started registering the more... <em>outlandish</em> of the calls, she could at least confidently say that those <em>were </em>rare enough to still be considered queer. As long as her first call didn't turn into an hour-long breakdown of how to plug in a USB (beginning with what a USB was, and moving right up through which end needed to be inserted into the computer, where to find a port, and the difference between a computer and a monitor - Joy had very much been lacking in her namesake by the time she got through that one), Elle expected everyone would survive. </p><p>Of course, then she didn't feel the single request either of her first two shifts. For the third, she had just finished logging into the laptop that would route coms to her headset when it lit up.</p><p>Though the standard script was ready on her tongue - agent  this is  be advised the line  secure - she didn't actually get the chance to use it.</p><p>"I'm at the computer, but the keyboards just covered in symbols."</p><p><em>So it's like that</em>, Elle thought, as the brief from Ops loaded on her computer.</p><p>A slight huff - something like a snort, or maybe a grunt of pain - came down the line, and the slightly latin-flavored voice added, "By which mean it's not any alphabet I recognize, outside of a few punctuation marks it's just squiggles. I assume Lao or Thai - not that knowing which would help me much."</p><p>"And I don't suppose you have a remote access dongle handy, Agent Lorenzo?" Elle double-checked.</p><p>"Nada, no. Considering no one expected an outpost the deep in the fucking jungle, I wasn't hooked up with cool toys."</p><p>"Have you tried any of the keys? How's your touch typing?"</p><p>"Excellent. Or, it would be if they hadn't shuffled the keys around on me- I can't even find the bloody backslash."</p><p>"Ah," Elle hummed, then nodded once to herself. "Here's what we're going to do…"</p><p>When she signed off, going by the book - "Turning you back over to ops, Agent. Yankee out." - it was to the sense of a job well done. She was taking off her headset in order to redo her pony-tail, when Dominic ("call me Dom") rolled out of the cube next to her.</p><p>"I'm sorry. Did you just say your designation is <em>yankee?"</em> he asked, incredulous. </p><p>She squinted at him. "Ye-es?"</p><p>He snorted a laugh, then, at her bewildered expression, added: "I'm sorry, that's just a bit on-the-nose, innit?"</p><p>Elle blinked, honestly not following at first. In her defense, after a few years in the aeronautics industry, she didn't think 'upstart colonials' when she heard the phonetic for the second-to-last letter of the alphabet anymore than she thought of ballroom dance for 'F' or 'T'. </p><p>"What's too on the nose?" Joy asked, having heard on the tail of the conversation as she walked by. Elle fought to suppress a groan as it clicked.</p><p>"Guess which designation Elle here drew?"</p><p>Joy tilted her head. "Was it 'B'? I don't think we have a Bravo, at the moment."</p><p>"Nope," Dom smirked. "Try 'Y.'"</p><p>"Oh," Joy said. Then, eyes widening, "Oh!"</p><p>Elle sighed. Ruefully, she predicted that - between the two of them - it would be around the bullpen by the end of the day.</p><p>"No one's gonna let this go anytime soon, huh?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Basically, since I'm an American, I figured it would be much easier to get away with Americanisms/a perspective that likely wouldn't ring true to any actual UK natives out there if the 3rd party POV character I was planning could be American, too. I also use the NATO alphabet pretty regularly at my job, so it popped into my head that it would be a fun bit of word-play to have my POV character called 'Yankee' :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Q-Watch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which we (briefly) meet a double-oh, Q has lines, and Elle joins a groupchat.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h4>Episode TWO</h4>
<h3>Q-Watch: Induction to the Council of Minions</h3><p>Her prediction wasn't entirely correct. Her co-workers in the branch all had a chuckle about it at first, but eventually the novelty you wore off.</p><p>The same could not be said for the agents that contacted Q-branch for technical assistance. Her opening, when she could get it out, was very frequently met with a pause and "...you're taking the piss." (Or - once, colorfully - "You're pulling my pisser.") </p><p>Elle could have written a whole new script for those interactions, at least for the first few minutes of the conversation. After that she never did take the same call twice, which kept things interesting. She was rather okay with the utter lack of excitement on the other end of the line; she had yet to deal with the sounds of mayhem she'd half-expected, no pop-whine of gunshots, no rumbling-boom explosions, no shrieks from twisting metal or collapsing buildings.</p><p>All it took to break that steak was, of course, a double-oh.</p><p>"Agent Roberts, this is Yankee-"</p><p>"Roberts is dead," a woman's voice cut in. "This is Agent Byers, authorization: zero zero eight dash echo golf nine lima…" as she rattled off the code, Elle somehow managed to type it smoothly into her terminal despite the surprise. </p><p>"Agent 008, how can I help?"</p><p>On the other side of the low cube wall behind her monitor, Theo's head jerked up - and no wonder. As far as Elle knew, 008 had been dark for months. His expression of shock probably mirrored her own.</p><p><em> Get Q, </em> she mouthed at him. </p><p>"We <em>need</em> to retrieve whatever Roberts was - quite literally - working on when he bit the bullet. Apparently, it was worth killing him for. </p><p>"Bother is, when his driver took a bullet to the head it rather made a mess of the car, and the bloody laptop is stuck in the wreckage.  Tell me there's something in this bag o' gadgets you can use to pull the data?"</p><p>Elle winced. From a laptop twisted into the wreckage of a car?</p><p>"What part of the laptop's stuck?"</p><p>In the pause she continued, "I mean, assuming it didn't need to be in one piece, could you get it out? If the hard drive survived the crash, we'll be able to pull the data. I imagine that would get you clear the quickest."</p><p>"Oh, <em>brill,"</em> she breathed. The woman's tone sounded a bit like she was kicking herself for not thinking of that. Elle opened her mouth to point out the weak spot of the hinges - and <em>then</em> the chaos broke out.</p><p>It was a horrible kind of symphony - made worse by the fact that Elle would really prefer to have eyes on the situation. But, somehow, 008 - or, more likely, whoever had targeted Roberts - had managed to find a rare spot where even SIS couldn't pull a feed.</p><p>The clattering, shrieking, shattering was surely broken glass (evidently the car had at least one window left). The rythmic kind of bump-dump-thump presumably came from bullets impacting against metal (hopefully, 008 found shelter from the wreck). And, under it all, the whispy sound of breathing, and 008's hissing, spitting both commentary and curses alike. </p><p>"Fuck, that would be my- hmph... obvious exit cue," and, "Bloody… buggering… shite!"</p><p>Elle worried at her lip, waiting it out. She waited until the decrescendo, until she was positive her voice wouldn't be an ill-timed distraction.</p><p>"008? Status?" Elle prompted.</p><p>When the agent replied, her breathy (not breath<em>less</em> - it would take a lot more than a few minutes under the gun to wind a double-oh) voice showed that 008's lungs were filling to capacity in support of her physical exertion.</p><p>"Yankee. Roberts's computer is recovered - well, half of it, but we should have the data once your cohort get their hands on it.</p><p>"And now I have a getaway to make. So you can tell M to get the rest from Oscar-" the rev of some kind of vehicle underscored her words at that point, "- and that 'I'll see you when I see you.'"</p><p>And the line went quiet.</p><p>"Agent? 008?" Elle tried, even knowing it was likely a doomed effort.</p><p>Elle held in a resigned sigh. "I suppose you're not listening, agent, but I really do hope you just turned off that comm, and didn't ditch it," she cast into the void.</p><p>"A sentiment I second whole-heartedly," Q remarked. Elle didn't startle - she'd been aware, peripherally, of the figure that approached. She did, however, turn and blink at him and surprise.</p><p>"Sir."</p><p>His face did something unintelligible, like it aborted halfway to an expression. "Q is formal enough - and has the added benefit of not causing me to look over my shoulder."</p><p>Elle nodded; "I know what you mean," she said. "I had an agent 'ma'am' me the other week - only, you know, I'm that way y'all do where it sounds like 'mum' - and I swear it was like..." she shook herself, feeling her cheeks heat in embarrassment. "Nevermind, not important. Agent 008 made contact from briefly agent Roberts' comms. It appears something has gone sideways in Izmir."</p><p>"I'll say," the Quartermaster agrees, angling his head slightly to exhibit his own ear piece. Elle's shoulders loosened at the sight.</p><p>"Then you heard it all? Know what she meant by 'Oscar has the rest'?"</p><p>He waived his hand in something like a dismissal. "She means the Ops Officer - Oscar and Olive, agents call them. As if we weren't going to pull the whole recording once we heard who was on the horn." Q's scoffed, made it obvious what he thought of <em>that.</em></p><p>"Don't worry about playing messenger to M," he told her, and added wryly, "That dubious honor falls to me. Just send the write-up of your perspective my way when you're done with it, and I'll tag it onto the report."</p><p>"Of course, s- Quartermaster."</p><p>Her perpetually-rumpled boss nodded before he turned away, adding, "And, Elle - well done surviving your first double-oh."</p><p>(Elle suppressed a frown; the praise felt undeserved. After all, she didn't exactly <em>do</em> much of anything. What, was the bar so low that the fact she didn't run screaming an achievement?)</p><p>The engineer went back to her desktop, taking the mouse to close out of the still-open mission file. A stray click, improbably placed just so, made her breath catch when the page loaded; Agent Roberts' personnel file, complete with 2x3 photo of a young man in mess dress, stared back at her. In an alternate universe, two hours to the left and one page back from this one, perhaps Elle would have answered her comm to his voice. She might have made a bet with herself as to how long disbelieving silence would last, would have advised him on whatever technological hurdle he'd encountered.</p><p>In this one, Elle dropped her eyes to her keyboard, took a deep breath, and locked her screen, rising with travel mug in hand to go make herself more tea.</p>
<hr class="rounded"/><p>        </p><p>As if having passed some final initiation test, she discovered the app on her MI6-issued phone later that day. A simple white interobang on a dark background, it appeared without fanfare; sometime after six, after an afternoon spent heads-down in her work, she was led by a slew of notifications to their source. 
</p><p>It looked generally like any other group messaging app, although it wasn’t a direct clone of any one she knew. Elle poked around, passing the main chat and the channels for side discussions, and found the membership list. Mostly those listed were her coworkers from TSS - though she spotted Robin, the aerospace engineer R&amp;D had turned into a ballistics &amp; explosives specialist. Q was notably absent, although R was obviously in on it - Samaya even had a little crown icon next to her name. 
</p><p>
  <span>Elle glanced around the office. The early risers, for the most part, were already gone for the day; those with an average morning start time, like Elle herself, would - or should - be healing out any moment. After a moment of consideration, the tech grabbed her tea mug, with its still-damp bag resting inside. She took it to the break room to wash it out for the day, disposing of the bag and wiping out the stains as best she could. On the way back to her cube, she swung by the workstation where Khalid was doing... something - with the 3D printed model of a ball joint. </span>
</p><p>She slipped her phone out of her pocket and waited for her co-worker to look up. When he did, his gaze fell naturally to the device she was presenting.
</p><p>“So. I have this new app on my phone,” she said, not - quite - turning it into a question.
</p><p>“So I see,” Khalid replied easily, though his expression read less like a dismissal and more like <em>'welcome to the clubhouse’.</em>
</p><p>Elle nodded, tapped twice so that the page header read <b>Q-watch.</b> “And this?”
</p><p>Khalid pursed his lips. “What’s the question?”
</p><p>Elle tilted her head, contemplating what she wanted to know. Finally, she slipped the phone back into her pocket and simply prompted, “Why?”
</p><p>The other engineer shifted in his seat. “Why do you think?”
</p><p>A little annoyed at the evasion, Elle opened her mouth - then closed it. She thought about the previous week, when their boss had either chosen to wear the same suit three days in a row, or just didn’t manage to go home. About spotting R head off an agent on a bee-line for Q, when the quartermaster was heads-down in a hack that would make or break 001’s op. About Joy - and Nigel, and Riho, and even Cricket - breezing past the ops desk to drop off a fresh mug of tea just moments before Q reached for it. 
</p><p>“Huh. Point.” 
</p><p>Khalid threw her a tiny smirk. His eyes scanned the room before landing back on her face. “Just… don’t talk about it here,” he murmured. 
</p><p>“What, fight club rules? Really?” she replied, skeptically, but keeping her voice at a similar volume. He shrugged. “We don’t  <em>seriously</em> think he doesn’t know?”
</p><p>He huffed. “No. But he lets us get away with it, so…”
</p><p>“So we don’t give him a reason not to. Got it,” she guessed. 
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Just before his attention returned to his model, Khalid added, “If you haven’t found them yet, there’s guidelines you should read over.” Elle saluted him with her mug, forgetting for the moment that it was empty. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will do, thanks.” </span>
</p><p>So she did. On the subway home, she breezed through the guidelines, and spent some time skimming back through the main chat to get a feel for it. There was an interesting mix of legitimate work questions - both technical and interpersonal, all carefully-couched in unclassified terminology, she noted. There was good-natured grumbling, and the occasionally more fiery rant. There was also, Elle was somewhat surprised to find, a significant reliance on the art of the meme for communication. There were a few she didn’t even recognize - and at least one slapped her violently right back to Y2K. 
</p><p>Eventually, she returned to messages at the bottom of the chat, the ones that had notified her to the new app but she had otherwise previously ignored. 
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
<p></p><div><p class="sender timestamp">14:00</p><p class="sender meghna">Meghna:</p><p class="incoming">Welcome</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">15:10</p><p class="sender riho">Riho:</p><p class="incoming">welcome</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">17:56</p><p class="sender cricket">Cricket:</p><p class="incoming">@Samaya soo when does the Q watch sched get reshuffled</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">18:05</p><p class="sender samaya">Samaya:</p><p class="incoming">End of the month as usual</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">18:25</p><p class="sender samaya">Samaya:</p><p class="incoming">@Elizabeth text me if you have any conflicts, please
</p></div></blockquote><p>
Elle hit send on her reply just as the doors opened for her stop.
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
<p></p><div><p class="outgoing">Roger</p><p class="sender timestamp">19:07</p></div></blockquote><hr class="rounded"/><p>  </p><p>
The lack of keyboards clicking furiously was the only indication of the late hour. The windowless basement where the branch was housed hid them from the sun - what little of it there was in London - and the fluorescents gleamed brightly any time of day. </p><p>Elle leaned her chair back, resting her eyes for a moment while she stretched out her neck. After giving up writing code as a bad (read: unproductive) job around seven, the tech then had spent a few hours training the Video Surveillance Pattern-Recognition program how to distinguish between a backpack and a papoose. </p><p>
Ah, the glamorous life at MI6. </p><p>It was her second rotation on Q-watch: that self-determined responsibility the minions shared to stay until the quartermaster actually left the office for the day. Unlike Elle’s first shift, when her boss miraculously left only an hour or so after her own shift ended, she suspected it was going to be a long night yet. </p><p>She leaned over and pulled out the bottom draw of her desk, the one that was sized for hanging file folders and would likely never see its intended use. Inside was the light-weight blanket she kept for those summer days when the office was especially cold, and the snack bin that she kept for when pausing work to eat a real meal seemed like too much effort. A lone packet of fig rolls, the disappointingly dry cousin to fig Newtons, stared back at her. Elle sighed, grabbed her tea mug, and went to see if Q’s was empty as well.</p><p>The Quartermaster of MI6 worked steadily, showing no reaction to her approach. His screen was still being mirrored on the display wall, and she took a moment to watch him work. From what she gathered, the code that flowed from his fingertips had something to do with the international satellite network - <em>He certainly wastes no time,</em> she thought.
</p><p> 
Earlier that day, a lapse in radio contact with 004 had sent the branch into a flurry, and they’d ruled out signal jammers or transceiver malfunction before finally tracing the breakdown to an unscheduled firmware update for the local comms satellite, exacerbated by the secondary route failing due to unmapped orbit decay. Thankfully ay the tail end of her extraction, 004 had made it out safely on her own - but that didn't mean Q was willing to risk it happening again.</p><p>Elle snagged the white mug with its scrabble-styled monogram silently. When she returned with a refill, she placed it precisely on the ring left behind from an earlier brew. It was barely a moment before her boss, seemingly still unconscious of her presence, lifted the drink to his lips. </p><p>After taking a sip, Q’s other hand paused in it’s typing. He turned his head slightly to blink at her, and Elle maintained a straight face at his bemused expression with a touch of effort. </p><p>“At this hour, I half expected mint, or one of those other profane herbal concoctions,” he remarked. </p><p>“Yes, well. I doubt you are going to leave before this is finished, so I thought I might as well do something about your efficiency,” she replied, nodding to his screen. He furrowed his brow at her, possibly trying to decide if she’d meant something disparaging by the comment, so she clarified. “Considering you’ve just solved for psi - again, despite already having done so two functions back.”</p><p>He blinked at her, then slid his eyes back to the code in question. Wrapping both hands around the warm mug as his eyes scanned, he remarked, “Perhaps I should leave the rest to you, then?”</p><p>Elle bit back the instinct to reply with a denial that was obscenity-laced. “Just because I can read <em>Jane Eyre</em> doesn’t mean I could compose it,” she said instead.</p><p>Her boss shot her a peculiar look. “And I suppose that makes me a Brontë sister?”</p><p>Elle shrugged. “It was that or Gershwin,” she offered after a beat, “But I wouldn’t exactly know how to proof-read a symphony score.”</p><p>Q huffed something that might have been a laugh. “Alright then, Miss Marquez. If I’m not taking you away from anything urgent-” she shook her head- “then grab your laptop and pull up a chair.”</p><p>
So Elle did. On impulse, she grabbed the packet of biscuits when she swung by her desk for the computer. That was how she discovered that, despite the amusing, somewhat displeased face Q made when he bit into a fig roll, he would nevertheless absently eat a biscuit any time she switched out his tea mug for one. </p><p><em>Score one for the Q-watch,</em> she thought.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey, thanks for reading :)<br/>Please let me know if there are any issues with the format/styling/readability of the embedded group-chat convo. This is the first time I've published a fic with more than just like, a single text or two that were easily included in the prose. I had fun playing with the CSS, but I obviously couldn't test it on devices I don't own, so... yeah!<br/>💚</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Interlude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A snapshot of life in the branch</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h4 class="test">Interlude:</h4>
<h3 class="test">All squares are rectangles, but not all horses are box trucks</h3>
<p>It was mid-morning in the Q-branch bullpen. The only active missions were in early stages, or else the kind of simple jaunts for young agents that hardly ever called for more support than Ops could provide. The quota for weekly explosions from R&amp;D down the hall had already been filled, so Thursday was set for the techs to have a productive day, completing what needed to be ready before the week's end.</p>
<p>Suddenly, Q's voice rang out, from where he stood at the action desk.</p>
<p>"Alright. Who taught VSPR that a horse carriage is a type of box-trailer?"</p>
<p>There was a moment of silence as the steady murmur of clacking keys came to a halt. Then, two cubes to Elle’s left, there came a flurry of unintelligible cursing. Q (along with half the branch) swiveled his gaze to where Davoud was tentatively standing, a sheepish look on his face.</p>
<p>"That… may have been me," the senior engineer admitted.</p>
<p>"Bloody <em>how?!"</em> Q demanded. Elle bit her lip in wary amusement - at least, knowing their boss, he was likely more appalled than angry.</p>
<p>"Well, uhm. Hang on, let me just…" Davoud's gaze slid back to his screen, as he bent over his workstation. "At least, if it's what I'm thinking… it was, what, a few weeks ago... and there was this..." he trailed off, muttering to himself.</p>
<p>His gaze darted briefly to the video wall where he'd taken over one of the displays, and Elle and her coworkers watched, rapt. After a few moments, terminals full of log files were replaced with a CCTV feed inside VSPR's distinctive interface, and Elle had to suppress a snort. (One of her fellows wasn’t so circumspect - or, possibly, they didn't even try.)</p>
<p>On screen, the side of a large trailer was wrapped in an advert proclaiming <em>Westways Horse-Drawn Carriage Tours;</em> the huge, bold decal featured a photo-realistic midnight-black Freisan. Sure enough, when enabled, the red symbols that signified VSPR's automatically-chosen interest points were clustered around the logo, instead of the box truck itself.</p>
<p>"Sorry, sir," Davoud apologized, as he selected 'unlearn pattern' from the program's image training menu.</p>
<p>"Oh, of course. It's fine, I've only been chasing every bloody tourist carriage in Vienna for the past half-hour," Q grumbled.</p>
<p>Elle pursed her lips, meeting Theo's eye over their cube walls.</p>
<p><em>Tea time?</em> she mouthed, with a quirk of her eyebrow. He nodded, gesturing to himself and then holding up two fingers in a silent 'me, too' request. She rolled her eyes, then glanced back toward their boss.</p>
<p>Already there, snagging the Quartermaster's empty mug as she swept by, was a woman Elle didn't recognize.  The figure was slight, with dark hair and ivory skin, her soft-looking sweater and long, flowing skirt standing out among the sea of slacks. Elle might have ruled out agent, as well as Q-branch (admittedly, Elle might not know all her coworkers by <em>name,</em> but she could at least recognize their faces), except that there was something so impossibly graceful in the way the woman moved that made her wonder just how many knives might be hidden under her clothing's loose folds.</p>
<p>
(She wouldn't learn to recognize 003 on sight - in soft casual <em>or</em> heavy tactical wear - for another month at least.)</p>
<p>
Elle watched idly as the woman returned the mug, along with a soft word that earned a nod of greeting from Q, before returning to her work.</p><hr class="rounded"/>
<p> </p>
<p>Later, when Elle checked her phone as she waited for her code to compile, the updates in the group chat would make her shake her head - and crack a smile.
</p>
<p></p><blockquote class="groupchat">
<p></p><div><p class="sender timestamp">
10:55</p>
<p class="sender riho">Riho:</p>
<p class="incoming"> <strong>@Davoud</strong> <br/>

</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">
10:58</p>
<p class="sender cricket">Cricket:</p>
<p class="incoming">  <strong>@Davoud</strong><br/>

</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">
11:20
</p>
<p class="sender nigel">Nigel:</p>
<p class="incoming"> <strong>@Davoud</strong><br/>
</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">
11:28
</p>
<p class="sender robin">Robin:</p>
<p class="incoming"> <strong>@Davoud</strong><br/>
</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">
12:19</p>
<p class="sender davoud">Davoud:
</p>
<p class="incoming"> oh fuck off rob, go blow something up</p></div></blockquote>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! 💚<br/>If you are not a member of the archive and would like to be, feel free to hit me up for an invite. I'm on tumblr <a href="https://daemons-not-rogues.tumblr.com">@daemons-not-rogues</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Her Guilty Pleasures</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which Yankee gets the Double-Oh Experience (Lite Version)™, and somehow becomes an enabler.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h4>Episode THREE</h4>
<h3>Her Guilty Pleasures are Shoes… and Knives</h3><p>Q-branch didn't, as a rule, maintain a night shift. R&amp;D might organize around-the-clock watch for particularly volatile experiments, or, when something time-sensitive was on the backlog, the techs would work overtime into the wee hours. For the most part, though, Operations Support up on the first basement level handled the overnight monitoring of agents. </p><p>
The double-ohs - when they deigned to remain on comms at all - were the exception to the rule. Q himself - or R in a pinch - always manned the line for MI-6's elite. But, despite the rumors as to his super-human status, the Quartermaster did still occasionally require sleep. So, for the less-critical hours of any given double-oh's op, one of the other Q-branch techs filled the void; someone who could be trusted to handle the minor things... and know when to call Q in for the rest.
</p><p>
  <em>(Once, Elle had wondered why Q-branch spent so much time on comms, when Six had a whole department for that very purpose. Then, she watched R have to step in for a panicked analyst from the Ops department when a “routine” check-in went tits up and instead wondered - why didn’t they hire more competent ops officers?
</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
She floated the question in the group chat on a slow day, to a variety of (mostly tongue-in-cheek) responses.
</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
<p></p><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:56</p><p class="sender nigel">Nigel:</p><p class="incoming">we tried that</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:56</p><p class="sender nigel">Nigel:</p><p class="incoming">it didn't work out</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">14:04</p><p class="sender khalid">Khalid:</p><p class="incoming">Yeah. Turns out one mission with a 00 is too much for most sane people</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">14:10</p><p class="sender robin">Robin:</p><p class="incoming">hang on mate. You implying we're insane</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">14:12</p><p class="sender riho">Riho:</p><p class="incoming"></p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">14:12</p><p class="sender meghna">Meghna:</p><p class="incoming"></p></div></blockquote><p>
  <em>(The general consensus, which Samaya helped codify when the discussion dragged on, went something like this:  
</em>
</p><p>
<em>
As it turns out, the best person to run comms for the highly-trained, criminally-insane toddlers we call double-oh agents is an engineer who’s used to things exploding, and knows that after a day or three of dealing with the children she gets to go back to her toys. Toys which - for the most part - don’t talk back, and always do exactly what you tell them... though, admittedly, sometimes that's not precisely what was intended.
</em>
</p><p>
<em>
But that's another story entirely.)
</em>
</p><p>The first time Elle officially drew double-oh support, Agent 003 was on the other end of the line. Her mission, investigating a french art dealer suspected to be trafficking in more nefarious cargo behind the scenes, was mostly a daylight operation. Which meant, for the remainder, Elle was on night shift. </p><p>Arriving at the office for the evening, she nodded to Nigel, the only other person left in the bullpen. Elle settled in to one of the secure comms rooms - maybe twice the size of her cubicle, the walls were soundproofed, and all the monitors faced pointedly away from the window toward the rest of the office. Elle readied her equipment: comm line in her ear, tea at her elbow, surveillance feeds accessed in the background as she read over the updates to the mission brief. Only then did she make the exchange.</p><p>"R, this is Yankee, signing on."</p><p>
"Evening, Yankee. All set?" At her affirmation, Samaya continued, "Cheers then. R signing off." </p><p>
Then, as long as her headset remained quiet in her ear, Elle did her best to put it out of her mind as she got to work. </p><p>
Two cups of tea later - and twice as many bugs found, sadly - a soft click in her ear marked the comm going live. </p><p>"This is Q-branch, Yankee speaking," she acknowledged, switching gears. The agent's signal still placed her in the hotel, so she should be able to… there. She spotted the now-familiar figure emerging into the lobby. The quality of the feed left something to be desired, but she appeared to be wearing a cocktail dress of some dark shade - red, perhaps? - and, in perspective, what must be a killer pair of heels. 
</p><p>"...Yankee, is it? All right," the agent hardly missed a beat, "The lack of a guest list for this soiree has left me regrettably deprived of gossip. Up for playing yenta-on-my-shoulder?"</p><p>
Elle couldn't help the brief flash of something like relief at the low-stakes nature of the request, though she did her best to smoother it so as not to tempt fate. "Happily," she answered, as 003 approached the bar.</p><p>
"Perfect. So- what have we on the Israeli by the piano?"
 </p><p>With Elle as her personal, digital oracle, the 003 cased and cataloged the hotel's reception and its attendees, picking out those who were present for a certain upcoming auction. Between 003's honey-sweet charm, MI-6's access to CCTV and facial recognition, and Elle's adept hand at exploiting financial records and social media both, they made quick work compiling the list.  </p><p>
At first, Elle felt vaguely self-conscious at the sound of her own voice - after all, she’d hardly picked her career out of any great desire to exercise interpersonal or communication skills. She was tempted to second-guess each piece of information she fed the agent, afraid she was wasting the woman’s time with trivia she might have guessed for herself. But, eventually, she grew more comfortable in her role. Perhaps even a little too comfortable.
</p><p>"Uhg, what a lech," Elle muttered, when a man in a flashy suit spent several long minutes attempting to leer down the draped neckline of 003’s dress. Her mic, sensitive as it was, transmitted the distracted remark across the Channel as the agent extracted herself from the conversation.</p><p>
"Most men are," the woman agreed, hiding the movement of her lips behind her glass. Her tone lacked any evidence of emotional investment in the observation despite the cynical nature of the statement. "Comes with the territory."
</p><p>Elle made a face. "Well. If you want a break with someone a little less likely to drool into his glass, you might try the Swede at your two."
</p><p>
(As soon as she made the remark, Elle grimaced at herself - for a moment, it was like she had forgotten the woman she was talking to wasn’t just one of her fellow techs. She felt foolish for a moment - then again, 003 never had to enable her comm in the first place, if she minded the voice in her ear.)
</p><p>In the surveillance feed, 003 was already angling right. "Married?" she inquired, evidently spotting his ring. "Unfortunately, even the happiest of husbands occasionally pull a Saint Bernard."</p><p>
Elle barely hesitated before she shrugged mentally and doubled down. "Yes, but I'm looking at their pride costumes from last year, and while his husband is sporting the purple, pink, and blue, Mr. Nilsson there is most definitely not."
</p><p>By that time the 003 was too close to her new target to reply discreetly, so if she had a response to the remark, it was lost.</p><p>"Mr. Nilsson, was it? How do you do?"</p><p>"I'm sorry, I don't seem to recall your name, Ms.…?"</p><p>"Oh, that's alright - it’s been entirely too long. It's Ana, Anastasia Lebrun. And how is your partner in crime these days?"</p><p>It was, perhaps, the wrong track to take - at least, if efficiency had been at all a concern. Eventually, 003 moved on, murmuring, “Well. He was charmingly besotted.” Elle twitched a smile; the agent’s voice was that perfect neutral that made it hard to decide if she was serious or satirical - but she rather thought the woman meant it. </p><p>
“It appears at least one person is actually here to bid on the art,” 003 continued, ”but I want to know more about this Mr. Glies.” </p><p>
“On it,” Elle confirmed. “Anything in particular I’m looking for, or is this more of a ‘know it when I see it’ kind of deal?” </p><p>
“I’m not sure yet,” the agent demurred, even as she appeared to scope out the area around the bar again in Elle’s surveillance feed. </p><p>Elle worked silently for the moment, letting the double-oh choose her next target. Davoud had a point, she thought, when he pointed out that the ops officers probably had such a hard time because they couldn’t turn off the need to 'handle' the mission - not like Q-branch's engineers, who treated comms more like tech-support-with-bullets. (The extra pair of eyes on the surveillance feeds were hardly more than icing to a double-oh, who could - and would - complete the mission with little more than “a knife, a silk hanky, and a flair for the dramatic” - the last being a quote from their esteemed quartermaster.) </p><p> “Tell me, Yankee,” 003 interupts Elle’s reverie. “Is there anyone present whose sexual history you have not been able to determine?” she asks cheekily. In the small room in Vauxhall, she almost chokes on the a sip of - now cold - tea. </p><p> 
Elle opens her mouth to protest - but then sighs, mentally, instead. Of all the mischief a double-oh could be making, this hardly registers. </p><p>“See the two at the end of the bar?” </p><p>“Pinstripes, or his companion?”</p><p>“Pinstripes has a tab open, his name is Alan Groshe. Little black dress hasn’t had to buy <em>herself</em> a drink, however, and I haven’t been able to match her to any of the guests on file.”</p><p>Elle paused then, almost certain she had covered what the agent was really looking for: a priority ‘unknown’ to target her considerable intelligence-gathering abilities against. <em>Then again, she did</em> ask… </p><p> <em>It’s entirely possible I’m going to hell for this,</em> Elle thought, and continued on anyway. “If she’s entirely straight, though, I’ll eat my hat,” she offered.</p><p> 
Thankfully, a soft huff of laughter sounded across the line as 003 got moving. The agent floated up the bar near the pair in the guise of refreshing her drink, and made garnering their attention look as easy as breathing. </p><p>
Unlike with the Swede, where English was a natural enough common language, when little black dress spoke up it was too introduce herself in French, and agent 003 replied in kind. 
Elle at least managed to catch the name she gave. </p><p>
Still, it took a frustratingly long time to find the right Teresa Sabbatini. It didn’t help that the conversation, which might have helped Elle refine her search parameters, was going entirely over her head; French was the one Latin language she couldn’t pick out even one word in five.</p><p>In fact, she still didn't have a positive ID by the time Ms. Sabbatini excused herself to the ladies. </p><p>"You with me, love?" 003 verified. In the surveillance, when Elle checked, she had stepped slightly away from the bar, and was holding a cellphone to her ear as cover.</p><p>Elle hummed an acknowledgement. "Your French is very good," she said, in lieu of information she didn't have. </p><p>"Ah, yes. Bit of a language barrier, then?"</p><p>"Something like that, I did hear correctly she is <em>un docteur,</em> no?"</p><p>"Hmm, yes. Italian-born, and I suspect French-educated. Divorcée, in the city for both business and pleasure.'</p><p>Elle's fingers paused momentarily as her eyes lit on the middle distance. "Divorcée? Recently, perhaps?" she mused, barely hearing the response as she restructured her queries.</p><p><em>"There</em> you are. Teresa Sabbatini - otherwise known as Dr. Maria Teresa Pietro <em>née</em> Sabbatini. Divorcée, as you said. Born: La Spezia, raised: Lombardy and Marseilles. PhD: Anthropology, École Polytechnique."</p><p>"Let me guess - the husband is regretting the prenup right around now?" 003 murmured.</p><p>"Something like that."</p><p>
"I suppose we will have to console ourselves with that gossip, if there are no girlfriends hiding under a digital rock."</p><p>Elle snorted. "I won't be eating my hat just yet," she warned.</p><p>"Oh, certainly. But however shall we endure the mystery?"</p><p>"I mean, given that look when you walked up - turn on the charm and I guarantee you'd find out," Elle demurred without thinking.</p><p>"And what look was that?" 003 inquired. </p><p>If Elle needed any further proof that her filter was well and truly broken, it came when she next opened her mouth. "I couldn't tell if she wanted to steal your shoes, or fuck you in them."
</p><p>In the silence, Elle’s eyes slipped closed in something like dismay, and she felt her cheeks heat to nearly flaming as she bit her lip.</p><p>
“Thank you Yankee, I’ll let you get back to work. Do be a dear and forward me all you’ve gathered this evening."</p><p>At the abrupt dismissal, Elle feared she had actually managed to offend - or at least annoy - the agent. But Ms. Sabbatini had returned from the restroom just as she was acknowledging the sign-off, and, right before the two women shifted with their drinks to the lounge area, 003 looked directly into the nearest security camera - and winked. </p><p>  </p><p>That <em>might</em> have been the end of it; Elle still had the rest of her shift to finish out before she could hand off to the morning relief, but it was unlikely the double-oh would contact the branch again so soon. And she was right in one respect; the next sound from her earwig was not the click of a comm channel, but the chime of an alert. </p><p>Sipping her coffee (despite a valiant effort to pre-acclimate her internal clock for the night shift, tea just wasn't cutting it), she checked the file. When she was done she nodded to herself, flagged the update, pinged 003's comm. As she expected, the agent didn't answer immediately, but that was okay; the earwig was smart enough to repeat the signal when it was next picked up. </p><p>
It was nearly midnight London time and Elle was pacing, trying to jar a thought loose, when the line eventually went live. "You rang?" 003 asked in a murmur. If the comms hadn't been Q-branch tech, Elle might have strained to hear - but they were, so the low voice piped clearly through as she headed back to the monitoring room.</p><p>"Agent. You peaked someone's interest tonight, evidently - they ran a deep background on the Lebrun alias."</p><p>003 hummed an acknowledgement. "And found-?"</p><p>"Nothing we didn't want them to find," Elle said confidently.</p><p>Q-branch's hardware really was remarkable, because she heard both the breath 003 took to respond, and, more distantly, a second voice. Elle made an idle note to find out and compliment which of her co-workers was responsible for the latest upgrades.</p><p>
  <em>"Ana?" </em>
</p><p><em>"Un moment."</em> </p><p>The sound of a faucet transmitted to London under the sound of 003's voice when she said, "That's excellent, Yankee, thank you for the update." </p><p>
And then, before the line went dead, she added sweetly: "And you were entirely correct regarding Miss Sabbatini." </p><p>Having just made it back to her station, Elle sat heavily in her chair as that last sank in. She snorted, somewhere between amused and incredulous, shook her head, and then promptly got back to work.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>...can you guess which line it was that popped into my head one night, begging for a one-shot to be written around it? 😅</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Interlude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h4>Interlude</h4><h3> YoU CAn't hACk a COmpuTEr tHAt's NoT tURnEd oN </h3><p>Elle was in the breakroom making tea when Q hit the button that shut down SIS London's main server rack. In hindsight, so many of her fellows remembering to take a lunch at nearly the same time should have been a tip-off. But, at the time, when she returned to her desk she was surprised to find half of her terminals not responding. She scowled at her monitor for a long moment, before the Quartermaster's annoyed tones cut through her reverie.</p><p>"Of <em>course</em> I know the servers are down. Who do you think hit the bloody power switch."</p><p>Intrigued, Elle looked up at her boss just in time to see him jab a finger down at his phone, evidently hanging up on the caller. Then he glanced up and around the bullpen.</p><p>Too late, Elle realized she was the only level-three tech left in the room, after the mass tea exodus. </p><p>"Here, come take this for me, will you? I imagine it's about to become our very own Moaning Minnie."</p><p>"Sir?" She questioned uncertainly, even as she stood to make her way over. He waved his hand, and the phone in it.</p><p>"Tell them it'll be - oh, no more than an hour while Alice does her work," he estimated, passing over the device like it was a hot potato. </p><p>Bemused, Elle spun to head back to her desk. She hadn't even managed a full step when it started buzzing in her hand, a firm endorsement of his prophecy.</p><p>The single letter on the caller ID made her wince. She turned back.</p><p>"Are there any other details, with which I may brief M?" she requested. </p><p>Q almost grimaced. "The watchdog protocols detected an intrusion, but only after the inner firewall was already breached. Not quite the white rabbit I intended, but the decoy drives should be riddling our hacker with tracer programmes any moment now." </p><p>Elle nodded once, hesitated briefly, and finally answered the phone on what was probably the last ring.</p><p>"M," she greeted.</p><p>"You are not Q," came the response.</p><p>"Nosir."</p><p>"Then I must presume the quartermaster is aware and working on the issue. What's our status?"</p><p>"Sir," she took a breath. "The outage you doubtless noticed was a... willful action on our end, after watchdog protocols detected at least one breach in the innermost firewall," she began. </p><p>"And the solution was- to turn it off and back on again?" M clarified, his tone as dry as the Sahara.</p><p>"A temporary outage," she assured, holding on to her professional tone with determined claws, even as her shoulders drew in in discomfort. "The drives should be back up in safe mode shortly."</p><p>"And in the meantime?"</p><p>"Project Alice has been deployed," Elle said, miraculously not sounding like she had only just made the connection herself. If she remembered correctly, in a project summary she read months back, the Quartermaster had dubbed it 'the honeypot that bites back'.</p><p>"In essence, a decoy drive of what looks like encrypted data should lure the hacker - or hackers - into allowing tracers to be installed on their remote systems, while the main servers are offline- completely inaccessible," she explained.</p><p>Elle suspected M's microphone was more sensitive than he knew; she doubted she was supposed to hear the sigh or soft <em>"Brilliant" </em>that followed, so she said nothing.</p><p>"Very well. Thank you for the update, Miss Marquez," he said, surprising her. (Then again, there really <em>weren't</em> that many people in MI6 with her accent - or lack thereof, as Elle rather saw it - so the recognition probably shouldn't be a surprise).</p><p>"And you may as well tell the other branch heads to contact my office when they call,” the head of MI-6 added.</p><p>"Thank you, sir," she replied, with feeling, and planned to do just that.</p><p>(Admittedly, M didn't make the offer out of the pure goodness of his own heart. After all, he specified to route them calls to 'my office' not 'to me' - which meant Miss Moneypenny would shortly be fielding a series of irate section leaders.</p><p>Granted, from what she'd heard, Elle rather suspected Eve Moneypenny would cow them with less effort than it took to dazzle in her immensely high heels.)</p><p>Elle tucked Q’s mobile haphazardly against her shoulder; on the other end of the line, the lead for Logistics hardly have her a chance to explain before begining a tirade. With one hand, she composed a quick memo in an effort to pre-empt further calls. With the other, she whipped out her own Six issued phone, and pulled up the group chat.</p>
<p></p><blockquote class="groupchat">
  <p class="outgoing">Why do ALL the branch heads have Q's #?</p>
  <p class="sender timestamp">
12:59</p>
</blockquote><p>She hit send on the email - the unclassified internal mail server was seperate from the main databanks, of course - and was finally given the chance to speak. Forwardimg the caller on to M’s office, Elle re-read her own message, and then made a face.</p>
<p></p><blockquote class="groupchat">
<p></p><div><p class="sender timestamp">
13:01</p><p class="sender joy">Joy:</p><p class="incoming">??</p></div><div><p class="outgoing">*Y do all the branch heads think they can just CALL him like he's their personal IT gopher</p><p class="sender timestamp">13:02</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:04</p><p class="sender nigel">Nigel:</p><p class="incoming">They probably think that's exactly what he is</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:05</p><p class="sender riho">Riho:</p><p class="incoming">Ugggh</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:05</p><p class="sender joy">Joy:</p><p class="incoming">We should get on that</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:09</p><p class="sender riho">Riho:</p><p class="incoming">he needs like. a secretary</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:11</p><p class="sender davoud">Davoud:</p><p class="incoming">bc that went so well the last time</p></div><div><p><br/>
</p></div></blockquote><p>By the time Elle felt confident giving the phone back to the quartermaster - she’d dealt with several of the other section heads, and the rest she could verify through read-receipts had opened her email directing them to contact M-branch - several of her co-workers had filtered back into the bullpen. Of her co-workers, there were only half a dozen or so who, like Elle herself, worked exclusively in software - that is, none of their work could be done without a computer, in a lab with physical, hands-on construction or the combining of chemicals. </p><p>When Q looked up, accepting the phone she offered back to him with a nod, his gaze landed on where the software team had formed their little cluster. </p><p>“What is this, social time?” he called.</p><p> Aimee, one of the younger techs, spoke up tentatively. “With the servers down, we can’t access the NAS…” she offered.</p><p>Q tutted. “What, and you expect me to believe <em>none</em> of you have a pet project squirreled away somewhere locally?”
Elle’s eyebrows went up, and she bit her lip to stifle the smile that wanted to surface; only Nigel managed to keep an entirely straight face, while the others threw vaguely-guilty side eye at each other. </p><p>“Well, go on then - <em>carte blanche,”</em> he authorized, much to the team's glee. “Most innovative project in my inbox by the end of the day wins, er... I’ll have R think of something.” </p><p>Elle returned to her desk as they dispersed, fighting a grin. After all, she had a custom program - to map connections in indexed intelligence reports for visual and statistical analysis - to continue prototyping.</p><p>Before she dove in, she took one last glance at her phone.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
<p></p><div><p class="sender khalid">Khalid:</p><p class="sender timestamp">13:15</p><p class="incoming">too bad we can't steal him Moneypenny</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:16</p><p class="sender cricket">Cricket:</p><p class="incoming">or clone her</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:20</p><p class="sender meghna">Meghna:</p><p class="incoming">ooooh i want</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:25</p><p class="sender nigel">Nigel:</p><p class="incoming">the cloning or our own Q-branch Moneypenny?</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:25</p><p class="sender cricket">Cricket:</p><p class="incoming">EITHER</p></div><div><p class="sender cricket">Cricket:</p><p class="incoming">wait, no, both</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:26</p><p class="sender meghna">Meghna:</p><p class="incoming"> </p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:27</p><p class="sender riho">Riho:</p><p class="incoming"><strong>@Samaya</strong> 👀</p></div><div><p class="sender timestamp">13:39</p><p class="sender samaya">Samaya: </p><p class="incoming">... I'll see what can be done</p></div></blockquote>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>